Barnes & Noble is the last major brick-and-mortar bookstore after the recent liquidation of Borders Group. But Barnes & Noble has been "vulnerable" to Amazon.com and other online competiion, The Journal says.

Increasingly, Barnes & Noble has shifted to digital books. So far, it's been a successful move, The Journal reports. A strong investment in Nook, Barnes & Noble's reading device, has given the bookseller a 27 percent share of the digital-book market.

But the lingering question, says The Journal, is whether Nook can handle advances from Amazon and Apple without sacrificing profitability.

Barnes & Noble's new digital reading device, the Nook Tablet, was unveiled on Monday. The Nook Tablet will be matched against Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet, which goes on sale later in November and Applie's iPad, The Journal says.

The Journal says the Nook tablet "has potential to fill a profitable niche in a still-fast-growing market.''